The Multiple Power of Obedience 

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All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers. 

Deuteronomy 8:1.

Obedience has benefits, just as the opposite has consequences.  In this passage, God Himself announces four blessings that should come to His people IF they obeyed “All” (rather than a convenient selection of some of) “the commandments” that He had given them.  The potential benefits of that obedience are listed as follows:

i) “that ye may live” – life 
ii)  “and multiply” – increase 
iii)  “and go in” – access 
iv)  “and possess” – inheritance 

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Beyond Holiness (Part 5 of 6) 

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  1. Baseless Blames 

Everybody will not sing your praise, but it should also be a cause for concern if everybody inputs to you a blame.  Woe unto those whom all men praise, Jesus said (Luke 6:26), but woe unto those also whom all men blame.  It does not matter what you do, some folks will still find a fault.  Some blames are baseless, true, but never give occasion for them.  Miriam and Aaron (the ‘church board’) blamed Moses for marrying whom he did, but God defended him. Why?  They were imputing to him a false and malicious blame borne out of their personal pride and jealousy.

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Beyond Holiness (Part 6 of 6)

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  1. My Story 

Have you ever been severely blamed for what you never did?  Put on your seat belt. I have had my share of bad names, very bad names at that, and they came from such unctuous lips that you were bound to believe.  I was called an adulterer, a wicked man, an idol worshipper, a pornographer, a violent person, and everything that should make you pluck a holy microphone from my filthy hands.  Some actually did, lest I should stain them with my unholy names.  The names went far and wide, sometimes ahead of me on an international or local trip.

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Beyond Holiness (Part 4 of 6) 

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  1. Besetting Excuses 

We bother often about being holy but do not give as much attention to being blameless,  to say nothing of being righteous.  The Chosen of the Lord cannot carry the name of Wickedness.  In Hebrews 12:1, Paul makes a distinction between “the sin” which everybody knows is S-I-N; sin which “doth so easily beset,” and the “weight” which is no sin but slows down the runner on the heavenly highway.  The weight is no sin per se.  It could pass as that ‘little’ weakness of character for which we often find excuses.  To bother only about The Sin but ignore The Weight is risky on the way.

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Beyond Holiness (Part 3 of 6) 

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  1. Righteousness and Wickedness 

Holiness has a cousin called Righteousness which, on the horizontal axis, describes a just relationship between humans; that is, how rightly and kindly we treat one another, rather than how purely we relate to God vertically – without idolatry, honouring His name, honouring His Day.  The opposite of righteousness, as commonly seen in scriptures, is wickedness, describing cruelness in relating with other humans. 

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Beyond Holiness  (Part 2 of 6) 

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  1. Holy and Blameless 

Writing to the Ephesians, Paul noted that we were “chosen … before the foundation of the world” for two purposes: to “be holy and without blame before him in love” (Ephesians 1:4).  According to Paul in that passage, two important qualities should mark the life of the Christian, especially the chosen: holiness and blamelessness.  Holiness is something that every godly person seeks, but not so has everyone also pursued blamelessness.  But what do those words mean?

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TITLES DON’T GIVE BREAKFASTS

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Titles don’t give breakfasts always.  Masters there are that are hungrier than servants in name.  The Prodigal Son learned that lesson in a hard way.  Severely punished by his impetuous haste for independence in a Far Country from home, he confessed his shame.  His father’s “many” servants had “bread enough and to spare,” whereas he, master of his own means in a Far Country, cried, “I perish with hunger!” (Luke 15:17).  Titles don’t give breakfast.  He would rather be a fed and happy servant at home than a hungry and haggard heir and master begging pigs for a bite . His senses had returned.

We should measure some boasts not so much by their flamboyant titles as by how much bread they have and to spare.  Mind titles that give no bread, especially titles that take your bread.

From The Preacher’s diary,
January 8, 2019.

THE SINGULAR HAND OF PLURAL ENEMIES 

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That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear. 

Luke 1:74.

  1. Something Strange 

There’s something strange about this verse; something that I never saw until now. Every proper person has two hands, and when we speak of multiple people, we speak also of multiple hands.  However, this verse speaks of the singular “hand” of plural “enemies.”  If that ‘natural error’ were only in this verse, one might have ignored it, but it occurs also in a previous verse, verse 71: “That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us” (Luke 1:74).

“All” means more than one, and that is plural, so is “enemies.”  According to this prophecy, however (for this prayer is called a prophecy in verse 67), “all” the “enemies” have a singular “hand” – one “hand” that holds down all of “us,” many as we are.  That takes me to another concern: can an entire community of goodly priests, according to Zechariah, be under captivity to a single wicked “hand”?

Sometimes, the one “hand” against which we strongly contend could be merely the one visible agency of many invisible “enemies.”  In other words, some of the battles we face transcend the singular “hand” that we see, feel, touch, hear.  To focus on that singular hand could sometimes be a tragic distraction.

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